Last Day on Earth
Published on 20. February 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-5011-4781-4 (ISBN)
Description
From the author of the Oprah Book Club Pick Dream State, a riveting and profoundly moving story collection by a writer “uncannily in tune with the heartbreak and absurdity of domestic life” (Los Angeles Times).
A boy on the edge of adolescence fears his mother might be a robot; a psychotically depressed woman is entrusted with taking her niece and nephew trick-or-treating; a reluctant dad brings his baby to a debaucherous party; a teenage boy tries to prevent his mother from putting his estranged father’s dogs to sleep. Ranging from a youth arts camp to an aging punk band’s reunion tour, from a dystopian future where parents no longer exist to a ferociously independent bookstore, Last Day on Earth revolves around the endlessly complex, frequently surreal system that is family.
Eric Puchner, hailed as “technically gifted and emotionally insightful” (The New York Times Book Review), and someone who “puts the story back in short story” (San Francisco Chronicle), delivers a gloriously original, utterly memorable collection that evokes both the comedy and tragedy of our lifelong endeavor to come of age.
A boy on the edge of adolescence fears his mother might be a robot; a psychotically depressed woman is entrusted with taking her niece and nephew trick-or-treating; a reluctant dad brings his baby to a debaucherous party; a teenage boy tries to prevent his mother from putting his estranged father’s dogs to sleep. Ranging from a youth arts camp to an aging punk band’s reunion tour, from a dystopian future where parents no longer exist to a ferociously independent bookstore, Last Day on Earth revolves around the endlessly complex, frequently surreal system that is family.
Eric Puchner, hailed as “technically gifted and emotionally insightful” (The New York Times Book Review), and someone who “puts the story back in short story” (San Francisco Chronicle), delivers a gloriously original, utterly memorable collection that evokes both the comedy and tragedy of our lifelong endeavor to come of age.
More details
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 133 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
233 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5011-4781-4 (9781501147814)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
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Person
Eric Puchner is the author of the story collection Music Through the Floor, a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award; the novel Model Home, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction; a second short story collection, Last Day on Earth; and a second novel, Dream State. His short stories and personal essays have appeared in GQ, Granta, Tin House, Best American Short Stories, and more. He has received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is an associate professor in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore with his wife, the novelist Katharine Noel, and their two children.